


Negotiation

by MsSolo



Series: Detente [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, melodramatic teenager, preslash, referenced JonDami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 01:55:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15523512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsSolo/pseuds/MsSolo
Summary: "Is this about a boy?" Tim asks. "I mean, I meant it when I said you don't have to tell me, but I think everyone would worry less if you let us know the vague ballpark. You know: romance, health, ninjas, time travel." He uses the rear view mirror to check his appearance, pulling some strands out of his bun to make it look more casual and checking his teeth."You're fishing," Damian says. "And your hair looks stupid. Just innately. Don't waste time on it."He gets out of the car. Tim isn't as nosey as Dick; or rather, he prefers to get his information on subtler ways.  Damian can't think of the last time Tim asked him a personal question outright.He narrows his eyes. "You're not fishing," he says. "You're deflecting."





	Negotiation

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of series plot starts to sneak in! Plus, peak teenager Damian. Everything is a massive, world-ending, completely unique to you crisis when you're seventeen.
> 
> I may rename the bits of this series at some point. I've ended up with a theme but it's not massively coherent.

This is the third time during their patrol that Dick has put his arm around Damian's shoulders. He has to reach up to do so now, which means he can't maintain his grip as easily as he used to. Damian shrugs him off again, and glares at him through his domino mask.

Dick sighs. "You could just tell me what's wrong," he points out.

Damian can't. He really can't.

"Everything is satisfactory," Damian says. Because it is, or it ought to be. He hasn't had a chance to patrol with Dick in weeks. Until Sunday night he'd been looking forward to it. Now he's not sure he'll ever look forward to something again.

"You're off your game," Dick says. "Come on, baby bat, there's nothing you can't tell me." He presses a gloved hand against Damian's cheek. The cold, hard gauntlet is not as comforting as Dick seems to think it is. "You know I'll always love you, no matter what." Dick cups his hand under Damian's chin and holds his face so they can look each other in the eyes. "You can tell me anything, okay?"

"This is not appropriate behaviour." Damian gestures around the roof top. "We could be set upon at any minute." His stomach is churning. Dick can't possibly know what happened with Jon at the Tower. He can't possibly know _that_ about Damian. But the way he's looking at Damian, searching, Damian feels like his soul is laid bare before his big brother. It can't be, though. Dick couldn't insist he loves Damian if he could see everything Damian is.

Damian jerks his head out of Dick's hand and steps back towards the roof edge.

Dick sighs.

"I don't know what else to say to you, baby bat," he says. "If you won't talk to me, at least promise me there's someone you can talk to, okay? You've been looking miserable ever since you got back from Titans Tower, and I don't like to see you hurting."

"I am fine," Damian grinds out.

"I know you patrolled with Tim on Friday. Did he-"

"Tim is irrelevant." He says it too quickly, and is rewarded by watching Dick leap to conclusions like the flying Grayson he is.

"Did he say something to you? I know you've been getting on better, but he can still be a little shit sometimes." Dick quirks a smile at Damian. "Do you need me to beat him up for you?"

It's an absurd suggestion, but it does provide an amusing mental image. Damian lets Dick think he's won the point.

"No," he says. "I... I will talk to him."

Because Tim is the only person he can possibly talk to about this, the only person who knows. Damian doesn't _want_ to talk to him, but he's starting to feel like he's going to burst, and at least Tim has already seen the worst of him. He doesn't feign ignorance or suffer from selective memory, like Dick.

But he's not going to do it _yet_ , that's for sure.

#

Damian is pushing rapidly cooling scrambled eggs around his plate when he hears the front door of the manor open. Alfred moves to intercept whoever has let themself in, and Damian takes advantage of the distraction to scrape his congealed breakfast into the trash. His father glares at him, but Damian doesn't care. He already said he wasn't hungry, twice, and it's clear that father doesn't want to have another fight about it for the third day in a row.

Alfred leads Tim into the kitchen.

"Do you want some eggs, Master Tim?" Alfred's eyes rest on Damian's clean plate. Damian can feel the accusation in his gaze, and hunches his shoulders, trying to sink into the table. He just wants to get out of here.

"No, I already ate, but thanks." Tim puts his hands on the back of Damian's chair. "Want to skip school today, Damian?"

"No." Father answers for him.

"Yes," Damian says, even though he's not sure it's true. The timing of Tim's visit is too suspicious to be a coincidence. Dick has said something to him.

Tim's grip tightens on the chair.

"You okayed this last week, Bruce," Tim says, voice carefully level. "My number theory class?"

Damian tries to remember if Tim has told him anything about this. His thinking had been unacceptably fuzzy recently, but he's sure he'd have recalled a chances to attend another of Sandringham's lectures. Tim had bought him the entire reading list, even tracking down the out of print ones, for his seventeenth birthday.

If he didn't tell Damian, he almost certainly didn't tell father. Which means he's lying to father.

Damian tilts his head back to consider his brother. His palms are dry on the back of the chair, the pulse in his throat is steady, his breathing is slow and even, his pupils are fixed on father.

"He has forfeited his privileges," Bruce says.

Tim's done it. He's lied to Batman and Batman hasn't realised.

Damian is impressed.

"What about me?" Tim asks. "What about Professor Sandringham? He's expecting Damian to play in class. You're asking me to lose his trust."

"You never told me why a college professor has taken such close interest in a high schooler."

"Because he's smarter than the rest of the class put together. Come on, Bruce, this is the sort of thing that looks great on a college application. Sandringham is willing to write him a reference. It's not like I can just ask him to rewrite his entire class schedule because Damian happens to be grounded right now."

"Nevertheless, Damian _is_ grounded."

Damian watches the tendons in Tim's neck go taut as he clenches his jaw.

"Bruce, I'm taking him to college with me. Your objection is noted, and feel free to tell Hammer it's my fault, but this had been set up for weeks."

Tim lets go of Damian's chair and steps out of Damian's field of vision. Damian turns his attention to his father, who is still watching Tim intently. Not meeting his eyes, though. Damian considers the line of his gaze, and turns sharply in his chair just in time to see Tim's hands stop back to his sides. He'd been signing to father.

Bruce heaves a sigh.

"Return him to school by lunch," Bruce says. "Damian, you are still grounded, and if I hear anything other than effusive praise from Tim or his professor Robin will be benched as well."

"Get your violin," Tim says. "We're going to be late."

#

It's the Mercedes, not the Ferrari, and Damian had to move multiple empty Gotham Grind cups off the passenger seat before he can get in. He's not sure if it's Tim being his usual health hazard self, or if that's just this morning's haul.

He holds his violin case carefully in his lap so it doesn't get contaminated by anything in the car, and leans forward to put the radio on. Hopefully it will deter Tim from talking.

Tim turns it off.

Damian turns it back on.

Tim reaches for the button again, but pulls his hand back.

"We don't have to talk, Damian. I don't even know what we're meant to be talking about, but can we please not listen to Vale's morning show?"

Damian nods, and lets Tim turn the radio off again.

He can't help but sneak glances at Tim as they drive, wondering what Dick has told him. They're halfway across the city when he decides he's going to have to risk initiating the conversation, and hopes they reach the campus before it gets out of hand. If they're going to the campus.

"Where are you taking me?"

Tim raises his eyebrows. "To my number theory lecture, like I said."

"Oh."

"You don't actually have to play, if you don't want to."

"No, I would like to." Damian rubs his fingers over the hinges on the case. "I thought you were lying to father."

"Oh, through my teeth." Tim grins at him. "He's going to follow up, of course, so I had to pick something we would actually do. Professor Sandringham had extended an open invitation to you. It might take a bit of sweet talking to get him to actually let you play, especially since even you can't play a canon alone, but when Bruce checks out our story it'll hold water. I'm sorry I didn't give you more warning, though."

"Tt. I no more need warning to play Bach than I do to punch ninjas."

"I figured as much."

"How do you do it? Lie to him?"

"Same way you'd fill a lie detector; I planted false tells in my behaviour."

Damian files this away for future use. It's too late to use it on his father, but it will be useful in dealing with lesser mortals.

Tim skims his hands up and down around the steering wheel. They're still ten minutes from campus. Tim's going to ask him to talk. 

Damian wonders if he opens the door now and throws himself out how long it would take Tim to catch up with him. The traffic is heavy but moving; he couldn't just abandon the car in the road.

"So..."

Damian puts one hand on the door handle and starts looking for a break in traffic. 

"Don't make me put the child locks on, Damian."

Damian sighs, and lets go.

"Though if you have an explanation for why our darling brother woke me up at ass o'clock this morning to yell at me about something I apparently said last Friday, and then about the state of my apartment because, okay, maybe it could do with a bit of dusting, but seriously, who even cares. I've been attacked by ninjas twice already this month. I don't have time to clean on top of that, and college, and Wayne Enterprises, and-"

Damian tunes him out. It doesn't matter what excuses Tim makes: he's just a slob by nature.

"Anyway, if you don't want to talk, that's fine, but if you can tell Dick we did I'd appreciate it. I told Bruce Dick asked me to. I'm pretty certain that's the only reason he didn't physically block us from leaving."

So that's what Tim had been signing behind him. For a split second Damian considers it. There's less groundwork to lay if he tells Tim. But the thought of it still makes his guts clench. Things with Tim are still new and delicate. Damian doesn't want to remind him of the sort of person Damian really is. He's already scared Jon away; it doesn't matter what Jon said about being friends and going back to the way it was before, Damian knows he's ruined everything. Possessive, Jon said. Jealous, Jon said. _Frightening_.

It is a good thing Jon ended it before anyone had found out. Damian couldn't bear the shame of having other people know how unfit he was to be someone's romantic partner. Easier just to never put himself or anyone else through it ever again.

"Did you tell Dick?" Damian asks. "About... About the conversation we had at your study group? The first time I was there?"

"What, the one where Bernard told terrible untruths about me? God no. Like Dick would ever have let up about that. He'd carve "mom sex voice" on my grave before he got bored the joke."

Damian manages a small smile at that, because Tim isn't wrong. He still finds it pretty funny himself.

"No, about me."

"Oh. That you're attracted to guys? No, Damian. That's private; you are in control of that information."

"He suspects something. He was talking to me like a parent in one of Brown's teen dramas."

It occurs to Damian that if Dick doesn't suspect, then he probably thinks Damian's killed someone.

It's a more comforting thought that it ought to be.

Tim shrugs at him. They're pulling into campus now, and most of Tim's attention is taken up by the frankly shocking number of students who walk straight out in front of the car, not even noticing when Tim has to break hard to avoid them. Damian braces himself against the dashboard with one hand, the other protecting his violin.

"He's curious," Tim says. "By which I mean nosey. You haven't had a girlfriend, so he's fishing." 

He finds a spot and pulls in.

"Is this about a boy?" he asks. "I mean, I meant it when I said you don't have to tell me, but I think everyone would worry less if you let us know the vague ballpark. You know: romance, health, ninjas, time travel." He uses the rear view mirror to check his appearance, pulling some strands out of his bun to make it look more casual and checking his teeth.

"You're fishing," Damian says. "And your hair looks stupid. Just innately. Don't waste time on it."

He gets out of the car. Tim isn't as nosey as Dick; or rather, he prefers to get his information on subtler ways. Damian can't think of the last time Tim asked him a personal question outright.

He narrows his eyes. "You're not fishing," he says. "You're deflecting. You haven't told Dick either."

Tim looks at him over the hood of the car.

"I'm pretty certain he knows, if that counts. But, no, I haven't has an official coming out conversation with any of the family. Like I said, it's private."

"You should," Damian says. "So I can gauge their reaction."

"Yeah, I'm not playing canary for you here. Even though it will definitely, positively, be one hundred percent fine."

"Tt."

"Absolutely fine. Just incredibly, soul destroyingly awkward," Tim admits. "Come on, let's go enmesh Sandringham in our subterfuge."

#

When Damian lowers his violin he is at peace with himself in a way he hasn't been in weeks.

Sandringham has had him exploring the King Canon, Good King Wenceslas played forwards and backwards and double time and half time and in multiple keys. Sandringham records him the first time, and he plays along with himself, matching the recording's time perfectly.

It reminds him of his childhood, when his tutors would push him to try every variation on a single theme. Any fool can appreciate artistry, but it takes still to admire true craftmanship. A nursery rhyme can be more meaningful than Shakespeare in the right hands.

That little aphorism has served him well against the Riddler over the years.

There is a smattering of applause, the most enthusiastic from the professor. Most of the students are staring at their phones, faces lit up like they're telling ghost stories under a bedsheet. 

Tim is giving Damian his full attention.

Damian sits next to his brother for the rest of the lecture and takes a few notes, but he's careful not to disturb the fragile peace in his own mind. It is nice to be calm.

After the lecture, Tim says, "I really need to come to your recitals, don't I?" and Damian pictures him there, next to Alfred.

"That would be agreeable," Damian says.

"What would you like to do next? I have computer lab in an hour, and I can probably get you logged in to one of the computers, or you can go to the library or the coffee shop and I'll meet you after."

"I'd like to go to school."

"To school?"

"We did promise father." Damian changes his grip on his violin case. It always feels different after he's played it, lighter, like the music has lifted it up. "I don't want to be benched as well as grounded."

"Oh, right. That." Tim shrugs. "If you're sure."

"I am."

He is. He's feeling much better. He's reminded of his first visit to campus, the revelation that Tim and his friend Bernard had a sexual history, and they were still friends. For the first time since Sunday he actually believes what Jon said, that they could go back to the way they'd been before. He just has to be mature about it. And the mature choice is to obey his father, and return to school for the afternoon.

He doesn't need to talk to anyone. He isn't weak, doesn't need to be supported by others. He just needs to be mature about it all, and never engage in a romantic relationship again. It's a surprisingly simple course of action for such the complex stew of emotions he's been experiencing, but Damian supposes it's a Gordian knot situation.

He's in math, looking at his fellow students and reassuring himself by cataloguing their insufficiencies that render them unfit romantic companions - as long as he keeps his standards high enough, he'll never even be tempted - when an old memory resurfaces. It can't have been long before his mother bequeathed him to his father. He's nine, maybe? And his grandfather is there. He's telling mother about the marriage he plans to arrange for Damian, about the tests he's laying before grandfather's preferred suitor.

Damian thinks if he had never left the League, that might have been his life. It would have been so much simpler. No awkward first kisses, no terrifying asking outs, no jealousy, no secrets, no break ups. Just a companion carefully selected to be his equal, to challenge him in the ways he needed to be challenged and complement him in the ways he needed to be complemented. A physical equal he could spar with, a mental equal he could converse with, an emotional equal who could stand up to Damian's passions. Like the Kings Canon, himself but subtly different, pushing him key by key to ever greater heights.

Of course, he would have had to inform his grandfather of his sexuality. If it's going to be awkward if (when) he talks to father, grandfather would be a thousand times worse. His brain threatens to stage a revolt as he tries to contemplate it, and he has to stop and remind himself he is just fantasising, and it's acceptable for fantasies to have some narrative inconsistencies. Besides, in the League you don't need a certain combination of genitals to produce a child. He and his perfect, imaginary partner could conceive and raise a perfect, imaginary, violent, murderous, manipulative great-grandchild of the demon.

So maybe the kind of family his grandfather would have mapped out for him would have its flaws, too. Still, his grandfather had thought there might be someone out there for him, and since Damian has no idea who that person was he can make them his perfect partner, and hold all others up against the image and find them lacking, and thus stay focused on the mission and free from distractions.

#

Damian feels his phone vibrate when he's about halfway through patrol, but he ignores it. He isn't like his peers, addicted to the endorphin rush of social feedback. Even if he knows from the rhythm of the vibration it's a facebook notification, which means it's probably Jon posting an update (because it's not stalking if it's a tool built right into the framework, it's normal and everyone uses it to make sure they see updates from the important people in their lives, that the algorithms otherwise bury under sponsored posts. It's perfectly normal and you're meant to do it and it's not possessive or weird and he's going to turn it off as soon as he gets home because the last thing he needs right now is Jon's happiness without him shoved in front of his eyes. He'd rather have ads for hot girls in his area, thank you) and his will power is absolute, because he ignores it. He is Damian Al Ghul Wayne, he is Robin, he is the son of the Bat, and he doesn't need to check his phone like a peasant every time it vibrates.

Only, the streets are quiet. Nightwing has already left, and father has instructed him to start making his own way home. He seems satisfied with Damian's rediscovered maturity, and Damian hopes they can regain their usual rapport soon. Father is stopping by the precinct to talk to the Commissioner (Damian suspects that means share a drink and talk about how hard being a single father is, but he refuses to let speculation unbalance him), so Damian is swinging back across town to one of the safe houses with an underground garage so he can borrow a motorbike.

He makes a deliberate choice to look at his phone when he gets there. He's not giving in to temptation. It's just an appropriate moment. He might run out of battery before he gets home, and then he might forget to check it, and then Jon will think Damian is ignoring him, and he'll think Damian doesn't want to be friends again, and everything will be ruined. He's not impatient to know what it says at all.

Jon is in Kansas, hanging out with Kon, which means he's an hour behind Damian. He uploaded the photo a few hours ago now. Kon must have taken, because it's Jon and the West twins at Ma Kent's place, having a barbecue with the sun setting behind them. #farmlife #sunset #bffs #tothestars #younglove

Young Love.

Because Jon has his arm around Iris West's waist, and they're sitting flush, side by side. She's holding a half eaten hot dog, and he's pressing a kiss to her cheek.

#

He's not even sure how he gets to Tim's place. All he can see is the Kansas sunset. All he can hear is the hiss and spit of the barbecue (and he wasn't even invited, even though no one else knows that he and Jon are... were... _aren't_ )

He doesn't know what he wants until it's in front of him, and it turns out what he wants is to punch his grandfather's ninja in the face. A lot. Also the kidneys, and the back, and the testicles. He kicks a lot of them in the testicles.

Eventually the room starts to clear as the assassins decide living to fight another day (to fuck another day) constitutes discretion and the course of valour. Finally, it's just him and Tim and a few unconscious stragglers.

"Do you want to interrogate them?" Damian asks, nudging one of the bodies with his foot, willing him to come around so Damian can hit him some more.

"No, just put them on the fire escape. At this point I honestly don't care. I'm not playing games with your grandfather any more."

Tim's wearing sweatpants and one of the Clone's t-shirts. Damian tries not to look at him.

"What brings you here, anyway?" Tim asks as they heave a ninja out of the window together. A throwing star escapes the assassin's robes and clangs all the way down the fire escape.

Damian stays quiet. He wants Tim to figure it out. That's how it works in fiction; the brooding hero only has to grunt and the sidekick intuits all their problems. Especially their romantic problems. They say something clever and insightful, and everything is all better.

"Damian, it's three a m. I'd really like it if you used your words right now." 

Damian fumbles his phone out of his utility belt and unlocks it. He hold it out behind him.

Tim doesn't take it.

"Damian," he says again.

Damian's head snaps round. "Are you wearing that because you're fucking _him_?" he asks. "The clone?"

Tim looks down at his shirt. "I think I stole this from the laundry room at the Tower after Jason broke in. There was blood over all my clothes. I've been wearing it to sleep in for years now."

Oh, well, Damian hadn't known it's possible to feel even worse, but apparently it is.

"Do you want me to change?" he asks.

Damian swallows, and nods.

"So it _is_ Jon, then." Tim disappears into the bedroom.

The room is in chaos. Some of it is the fight that just happened, but Damian doubts the ninjas brought almost two dozen empty energy drink cans with them, or week old Chinese take out, or piles of dirty laundry. Honestly, at this point it's probably easier if Tim just moves rather than tries to tidy it.

Tim returns to the room as Damian tips the sofa back upright. He's wearing a Gotham U hoodie now, and holds out some clothes to Damian.

Damian frowns at the sweats and t-shirt.

"Come on, you're staying over," Tim says. "Even if this is the most succinct crisis anyone's ever had, you'd still get less than an hour's sleep before school if you insist on heading back to the manor. I've already messaged Alfred to let him know."

Damian changes in the bathroom, removing his uniform methodically and placing each element, carefully folded, on top of Tim's completely empty laundry basket.

Truly, his brother is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in black mould.

When he returns Tim has cleared a section of floor around the sofa by piling the trash against the wall. He holds out a glass of water. There's a box of kleenex on the arm of the sofa.

"I'm not going to _cry_ , Drake."

"I might, if I don't get more sleep in the near future. Come on. Walk me through it."

Damian sits at the opposite end of the sofa from Tim, knees curled up to his chest. He holds the glass of water with both hands, and faces his reflection in the flat screen television. There's a nunchuck embedded in it.

Slowly, haltingly, it all comes out. The mission. The kiss. The forced proximity in the cabin in the mountains. Exploring what this could be. Rescue. The Tower. Keeping it a secret. The jealousy. The burning need to know what Jon was doing, who he was doing it with, what other secrets he was keeping (because he was Jon, he was a Super, he was open and honest and he wasn't supposed to be this _good_ at secrets). Fighting. Breaking up. The promise to be friends, to go back to normal. Iris West.

He ends up using the kleenex. Tim doesn't comment.

The sun is rising by the time he's done. He feels wrung out, hollow. Heartbroken.

Tim makes a pot of coffee. He gives Damian a mug that's at least half creamer, with brown sugar and cinnamon stirred into it. His own is black. Damian wonders if he should start drinking black coffee now. Now he's mature.

He shuffles round on the sofa, so his feet are pointing towards Tim. Tim mirrors his posture, pressing his socked feet over Damian's bare toes.

"That sucks," Tim says.

"That's it?" That's all Tim has for him? Why was everyone pushing him so hard to talk to someone if the smartest person Damian knows can only offer "that sucks".

"That really sucks?" Tim smiles at him over the coffee. "I want to validate that feeling. It's not just you, Damian, okay? The way you feel right now, that's a normal way to feel about the end of a relationship. It's really shitty, and it feels like the end of the world, and you'll never love again. Just let it suck, for a while, okay? You'll come out the other side faster for it."

"Tt. What's the point? I am clearly not cut out for romantic entanglements."

"You're a bat," Tim says. "Welcome to the family. We are terrible, terrible boyfriends. We're obsessive and intense and controlling and condescending and emotionally shut down. We drive people away. We obsess about our own misery. Dick expects his lovers to solve all his problems and resents them when they don't. Jason runs away as soon as there's a breath of commitment. I justified lying to Steph for her own good repeatedly. Dated her under a fake name. Was really condescending. And may have implied I knew more about pregnancy than her, who was pregnant at the time." He takes a sip of his coffee. "Frankly, sometimes I've wondered if she faked her death just to get back at me. I may have deserved it." He shrugs. "And then there's Bruce, of course."

"So we're all fated to die alone. What good company I keep." Damian ladles on the sarcasm.

"I hope not," says Tim. "But maybe? I mean, I'd like to think that there are people out there for us, people we can make it work with, but we should probably all be in therapy before we're let loose on the general population."

Damian twists his mug in his hands.

"I don't want to see him," he says. "I don't want to lose him as a friend, but I don't- I _can't_ see him. Not yet."

"That's okay."

"But what do I _do_ about it? I have to see him. I leave for the Tower tomorrow afternoon."

"Don't go. Find a case to work on here. Bury yourself in it."

"But if I don't go, they'll be there together."

"It's shitty he moved on so quickly. Maybe a rebound? Nothing you can do about it, unfortunately. Just accept that it's shitty and give yourself permission to feel sorry for yourself."

That's a hard request to swallow. He's not used to feeling sorry for himself. He's Damian Al Ghul Wayne.

Damian finishes his coffee. He looks for somewhere to put the mug down, and notices Tim's is just lying on its side on the sofa cushions.

"I don't have any school uniform here," Damian says.

"Do you want to go?"

He shakes his head.

"I'll get Alfred to call you in sick. You can catch up on sleep here."

"I can't sleep here," Damian says. "I'll stick to something."

Tim wrinkles his nose. "It's gotten out of hand," he admits. "After a certain point there's just so much mess the idea of tackling it becomes too daunting."

"Are you okay?" Damian looks at his brother, the purple bags under his eyes, his greasy hair, the exhaustion in every line of his body. "Do you... need to talk?"

"I'm just tired. School and work and Red Robin and Ra's... I'm holding it together, though. You don't need to worry about me. I can stand a little squalor for now. Once the semester's over, I'll deal with it."

That's four weeks away. He'll have rats by then, if he doesn't already. Damian wonders if he should press Tim, but he's so tired of his own emotions he's not sure he could manage Tim's on top.

"Why don't you just hire a maid service?" Damian asks.

"I don't need a maid service!"

Damian raises an eyebrow.

"I can sort it out myself. I just need the time. It's not that bad."

Damian raises his other eyebrow to join the first.

"It's not a bad idea," Tim concedes.

"Prioritisation," Damian says. "You don't have to drop any balls if you make a conscious choice to put some down."

Tim's smile is sad and tired, but it's also fond. He presses his toes down harder on Damian's feet. It's a ridiculous way of showing physical affection, a reminder that Drake is a touch-starved child no better at normal human interactions than Damian himself, and it makes Damian's whole body warm. Damian wriggles his toes against Tim's socks.

"That's a good way of looking at it. Anyway, the bed is in a decent state. Clean sheets and everything. I need to take a shower and head over to Wayne Enterprises shortly. I've got a call with Sweden. I won't be back until late today, but you're welcome to stay as long as you want. We can use the ninjas as an excuse with Bruce."

Damian nods and slides his feet out from under Tim's and puts them - gingerly - on the floor. His jaw cracks as he yawns. He still feels like his insides have been scraped out and his heart aches like an overworked muscle, which is probably not a bad way of thinking about it. The kind of exhaustion he usually associates with ten rounds against Killer Croc is setting in, and it takes immense effort just to stand up.

He realises, once he's traversed the impossible distance to Tim's bedroom, that he hasn't thanked Tim. Tim hasn't slept at all, because of him, and won't get the opportunity to for at least another fourteen hours.

Well, Damian's never been good with words. He sets a reminder on his phone for two PM to have some of Tim's favourite coffee delivered to his office as an expression of his gratitude, and falls blissfully asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I gave Vicki Vale a radio show, because if Lois can hop mediums as a journalist even few reboots, why not Vale?


End file.
